Kamala! Kamala! Kamala!

Kamala Harris addressed her supporters at a campaign event in Delaware, Monday, July 22, 2024.

Excerpts from the Vice President’s Remarks –

Today, just right after Joe made his announcement, it was important for me to continue with his role of leadership in this office of, like him, who has said for many, many, many months, and I say it today: Thank you all so very much for what you are doing and what you will continue to do.

And I know it’s been a roller coaster, and we’re all filled with so many mixed emotions about this. I just have to say, I love Joe Biden. I love Joe Biden, and I know we all do. And we have so many darn good reasons for loving Joe Biden. And I have full faith that this team will be the reason we win in November.

Kamala Harris holds campaign event in Delaware.

We have 106 days until Election Day, and in that time, we have some hard work to do. Over the next 160 days, we are going to take our case to the American people, and we are going to win.

It has been one of the greatest honors of my life, truly, to serve as vice president to our president, Joe Biden. Joe’s legacy of accomplishment just over — a lifetime but just over the last three and a half years is unmatched in modern history. In one term, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who served two terms in office.

Joe has stood up for democracy at home, and he has stood up for democracy abroad, and he has always stood up for what he believes is right. We are deeply, deeply grateful for his service to our nation.

It is my great honor to have Joe’s endorsement in this race. And it is my intention to go out and earn this nomination and to win.

So, in the days and weeks ahead, I, together with you, will do everything in my power to unite our Democratic Party, to unite our nation, and to win this election.

You know, as many of you know, before I was elected as vice president, before I was elected as United States senator, I was the elected attorney general, as I’ve mentioned, of California. And before that, I was a courtroom prosecutor.

In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds — predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.

As a young prosecutor, when I was in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in California, I specialized in cases involving sexual abuse. Donald Trump was found liable by a jury for committing sexual abuse.

As attorney general of California, I took on one of our country’s largest for-profit colleges and put it out of business. Donald Trump ran a for-profit college, Trump University, that was forced to pay $25 million to the students it scammed.

As district attorney, to go after polluters, I created one of the first environmental justice units in our nation. Donald Trump stood in Mar-a-Lago and told Big Oil lobbyists he would do their bidding for a $1 billion campaign contribution.

During the foreclosure crisis, I took on the big Wall Street banks and won $20 billion for California families, holding those banks accountable for fraud. Donald Trump was just found guilty of 34 counts of fraud.

But make no mistake, all of that being said, this campaign is not just about us versus Donald Trump. There is more to this campaign than that.

Our campaign has always been about two different versions of what we see as the future of our country — two different visions for the future of our country: one focused on the future, the other focused on the past.

Donald Trump wants to take our country backward to a time before many of our fellow Americans had full freedoms and rights.

But we believe in a brighter future that makes room for all Americans. We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by but to get ahead.

We believe in a future where no child has to grow up in poverty; where every person can buy a home, start a family, and build wealth; and where every person has access to paid family leave and affordable childcare.

That’s the future we see.

Together, we fight to build a nation where every person has affordable health care; where every worker is paid fairly; and where every senior can retire with dignity.

All of this is to say building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency. Because we know, when our middle class is strong, America is strong.

And we know that’s not the future Donald Trump is fighting for. He and his extreme Project 2025 will weaken the middle class and bring us backward — back to the failed trickle-down policies that gave huge tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and made working families pay the cost; back to policies that put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block; back to policies that treat health care as only a privilege for the wealthy, instead of what we all know it should be, which is a right for every American.

America has tried these economic policies before. They do not lead to prosperity. They lead to inequity and economic injustice, and we are not going back. We are not going back. They’re not taking us back.

Our fight for the future is also a fight for freedom. Generations of Americans before us have led the fight for freedom, from our founders to our framers, to the abolitionists and the suffragettes, to the Freedom Riders and farm workers.

And now I say, team, the baton is in our hands. We who believe in the sacred freedom to vote. We who are committed to fight to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.

We who believe in the freedom to live safe from gun violence, and that’s why we will work to pass universal background checks, red flag laws, and an assault weapons ban.

We who will fight for reproductive freedom, knowing if Trump gets the chance, he will sign a national abortion ban to outlaw abortion in every single state. But we are not going to let that happen.

It is this team here that is going to help in November to elect a majority of members of the United States Congress who agree the government should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.

And when Congress passes a law to restore reproductive freedoms, as president of the United States, I will sign it into law.

In this election, we know we each face a question. What kind of country do we want to live in: a country of freedom, compassion, and rule of law — or a country of chaos, fear, and hate?

You all are here because you, as leaders, know we each — including our neighbors and our friends and our family, we each, as Americans, have the power to answer that question. That’s the beauty of it — the power of the people. We each have the ability to answer that question.

So, in the next 106 days, we have work to do. We have doors to knock on. We have people to talk to, we have phone calls to make, and we have an election to win.

So, are you ready to get to work?

Do we believe in freedom? Do we believe in opportunity? Do we believe in the promise of America?

And are we willing to fight for it?

And when we fight, we win.

God bless you all. And God bless the United States of America and Joe Biden.